What to see: Federico Beltrán Masses at Stair Sainty, Mayfair

Having painted everyone from popes to Hollywood starlets before ending his days in penury, the Cuban painter Federico Beltrán Massesfelt the effects of fortune's wheel more than most.

There, he mixed with the people that he painted: Joan Crawford, Randolph Hearst and the actor Rudolph Valentino. The interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s were his heyday, with an entire pavilion devoted to his work at the 1920 Venice Biennale.

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Following his death in 1949, little was thought of the painter or his work for decades, until a previously hidden collection of Beltrán Masses work emerged, which forms the basis of this exhibition, organised by Stair Sainty.

Pictured above is a portrait of Edward VIII's mistress Freda Dudley Ward, delineated in the rich, jewel-like tones that characterise many of Beltrán Masses's paintings.

'Federico Beltan Masses: Under the Stars' is at Stair Sainty, 38 Dover Street, London W1 from 10 February until 24 March.

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